Load carriers, and particularly sports equipment carriers, for vehicles having bed structures are known devices for transporting cargo above the bed structure of a vehicle. Common uses of such load carriers can include the transport of generally elongate objects, such as ladders, piping, lumber, construction materials, etc. Likewise, sport related uses of such load carriers can include the transport of canoes, kayaks, paddles and similar equipment. An example of a particularly commercially successful load carrier for a vehicle having a bed structure is Thule's XSPORTER carrier.
As illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 of the present application, the XSPORTER carrier broadly includes a plurality of upright base support members each configured for securing a generally vertically adjustable upright member. A pair of upright members is shown as securing a load bearing crossbar member therebetween such that cargo can be set and secured thereon. Each upright base support member includes a generally flat, planar lower surface configured for resting and being clampably secured to the top rail of a truck bed side wall. Heretofore, top rails of pickup truck beds were primarily formed from a single ply of relatively rigid sheet metal bent upon itself to form a generally inverted J-shaped structure forming a hollow. To clampably secure a base support member to the top rail, a clamping assembly was used in conjunction with the base support member to apply a clamping force upon the upper and lower surfaces of the top rail.
While the above-described XSPORTER carrier and associated clamping assemblies remain popular and successful, they are, however, occasionally incapable of securing load carriers upon some types of new vehicles; i.e., pickup trucks having new types of top rail structure and/or internal bed rail systems; examples include the 2006 TOYOTA TACOMA, 2006 HONDA RIDGELINE, AND 2006 NISSAN TITAN AND FRONTIER pickup trucks. In these examples the new top rail structures are not generally J-shaped and/or do not generally allow ready access to the upper and lower surfaces of the top rail. Similarly, current load carriers and clamping assemblies therefor are not configured for being secured to the rails of the internal bed rail systems of these newer vehicles.
It should be appreciated that a primary reason that the vehicle manufacturers have changed to these alternative configurations are predominantly cost driven. To reach this goal, more of the truck bed components, including those relied upon for securing load carriers of the type presently addressed, are made from plastic, composites and similar materials that are significantly more flexible than the traditional sheet metal used in pickup bed construction. This loss in structural rigidity further contributes to the difficulties experienced in mounting load carriers of the present type upon pickup trucks where these carriers have traditionally relied heavily upon the fortitude of the top rail of the truck bed.
An effect of the truck manufacturers using installed rail systems for receiving such things as load carrier mountings in the pickup truck beds is that the rail configurations on different makes and models of trucks now vary widely. This presents a problem for load carrier manufacturers in that the use of universal mounting hardware is no longer possible and a wide variety of differently configured mounting hardware must be provided in order to accommodate owners of different vehicles. This means that this cost-saving move of the truck manufacturers has resulted in a cost increase to the load carrier manufacturers. Therefore, a goal of the present invention is to minimize this detrimental impact on load carrier manufacturers while at the same time providing a superior truck bed style load carrier to consumers.